Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown rants about Stephen A. Smith. Credit: Jaylen Brown on Twitch; ESPN Credit: Jaylen Brown on Twitch; ESPN
By Matt Clapp on

It’s been an eventful month of May for Boston Celtics superstar Jaylen Brown.

After leading their first-round series 3-1, the Celtics lost in seven games to the Philadelphia 76ers. Brown then went off on a Twitch stream about NBA officiating, claiming that NBA referees admit that there’s an agenda against him. The NBA fined Brown $50,000 for his comments, and he proceeded to double down on his criticism of NBA officiating.

Brown’s comments led to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith saying on First Take, “He needs to be quiet. Unless you’re trying to get traded.”

Additionally, Smith suggested that Celtics star Jayson Tatum was on First Take instead of Brown’s Twitch stream due to being frustrated by Brown’s comments.

Brown fired back on May 7 with a post on X: “I’ll ‘be quiet’ [or] stop streaming if you ‘be quiet’ and retire. Let’s give the people what they want.”

Fast-forward to Sunday night, and Brown had a whole lot more to say on his latest Twitch stream about Smith.

Brown played clips of Smith criticizing him in the May 7 edition of First Take and went off in his commentary, calling for Smith — “this motherf*cker” — to retire and referring to the ESPN personality as “the face of clickbait media.”

“Tell this motherf*cker to retire, because he’s the face of clickbait media,” Brown said. “And maybe with his retirement, we could spark a movement to get the rest of these motherf*ckers out of here. Or to also have some type of, forget journalistic integrity, actual integrity in order to hold themselves accountable to the bullsh*t takes they put out with no basis, no bias, no information. Just narrative. Just for the sake of just pushing a weak narrative. Just purely out of that.”

Brown also sounded off about Smith questioning why Tatum wasn’t on his Twitch stream.

“What type of journalism is this?” Brown asked. “Jayson Tatum hasn’t been on my stream, and this is what we’re talking about on First Take? What if [Tatum] just don’t like being somewhere in an uncontrolled environment? Why are you doing journalism on me having guests on my stream? And this is a part of the reason why I started streaming. This is a part of the reason why people use the term ‘clown,’ and it synchronizes with someone like Stephen A. Smith. Because this is what you’re using your platform for. What are you talking about?”

“This is a narrative that he’s creating. This isn’t journalism.” Brown said after showing another clip of Smith. “This is him making his own opinion and formulizing it about what I have to say, on his platform. And this is why, respectfully, a lot of people say, ‘F*ck Stephen A.’ Because this is the type of stuff he does, and then he doesn’t recognize it.”

“F*ck Stephen A!” Brown added.

“My offer still stands,” Brown continued. “You want me to be quiet and stop streaming? Well, I want you to be quiet and get off these networks. Because you’re not using your platform to do real journalism. You’re using your platform to use clickbait.”

This is the kind of attention that doesn’t drive Smith away, but rather that he thrives on. He signed a new five-year, $100 million contract with ESPN last March, and with his ESPN role, his SiriusXM podcast, and his various hits on political programming these days, his media presence has only been increasing, for better or worse. And he’ll surely have a response to Brown’s latest rant.

About Matt Clapp

Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.

He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.

View all posts by Matt Clapp